Las Vegas has been outdrawing Charlotte's races for three years
Charlotte Motor Speedway owner Bruton Smith, as he is wont to do, is again making threats, telling some folks that heās probably going to move one of Charlotteās NASCAR Sprint Cup Races to Las Vegas. Like we havenāt heard this before.
Las Vegas has less permanent seating (131,000) than Charlotte Motor Speedway (146,000), but since 2010, its single race in March has outdrawn each of the three races in Concord. Jayski.com has compiled the numbers since 2007, and you can see in the chart below that Charlotte was drawing quite well until the recession hit, and attendance took a big hit in 2009:
https://www.google.com/fusiontables/embedviz?containerId=gviz_canvas&q=select+col0%2C+col1%2C+col2%2C+col3%2C+col4+from+1CudHCJs62GYTO_vGvS3cMvTkynBHVH2PgP-fAH8+order+by+col0+asc+limit+10&viz=GVIZ&t=LINE&uiversion=2&gco_forceIFrame=true&gco_hasLabelsColumn=true&gco_vAxes=%5B%7B%22title%22%3Anull%2C+%22minValue%22%3Anull%2C+%22maxValue%22%3Anull%2C+%22useFormatFromData%22%3Atrue%7D%2C%7B%22useFormatFromData%22%3Atrue%7D%5D&gco_useFirstColumnAsDomain=true&gco_booleanRole=certainty&gco_lineWidth=2&gco_hAxis=%7B%22useFormatFromData%22%3Atrue%2C+%22title%22%3A%22Track%22%7D&gco_title=NASCAR+Announced+Attendance&gco_legend=right&gco_curveType=&att=true&width=875&height=385
(One note: The 2009 May race in Charlotte was postponed from Sunday to a Monday. The original crowd on Sunday was estimated at 160,000, but only 100,000 stuck around for the actual race the next day)
NASCAR attendance has been sliding overall over the last few years, and this year NASCAR is stopping the flow of those disappointing numbers by no longer releasing them, so attendance at this yearās NASCAR races will literally be anyoneās guess.
UPDATE (3:48 p.m.): Smith issued a statement this afternoon:
āThe ādone dealā report by WBTV regarding moving a race is false. No final decision has been made regarding any race date move, and I have not discussed this with NASCAR.
āInstead of what ācouldā happen, letās set the facts straight about what has happened. Weāve invested $100 million in the Charlotte Motor Speedway complex in the past six years to make it even better for the fans. Weāve expanded our fan zone, added pit road suites and built the worldās largest HDTV for every fan to enjoy. Weāve put more people to work with these projects and weāve added more events to the calendar to bring in more tourists and fans. And weāve done this during the worst economy since the Great Depression.
āWeāve done this without asking for a handout from the government, like weāve seen from so many other sports facilities, teams or franchises, and yet at the same time property values are falling during the recession, our Cabarrus County taxes have doubled since 2005. We absolutely love the fans that come to Charlotte Motor Speedway. Itās frustrating to think about the future and consider that the local government doesnāt share the same excitement about Charlotte Motor Speedway that our fans do. The Cabarrus County politicians may say nice things to the media, but raising taxes does not support the tourism business, the area economy or companies trying to grow.ā
